I'd just nodded but I knew that he had removed the KMT army slogans that ran down both his forearms:
take back the mainland
and
kill mao and zhu
. He had been wearing long sleeves to cover them up as long as I had known him.
Frankie glanced at me and nodded, indicating that now was a good time to introduce me.
“Hello, sir,” I said to Frankie's friend.
“Jing-nan,” said Frankie as he held an open hand to the man. “This is my old service pal from the orphan brigade!”
The unit had been made up of boys whose fathers had been killed by Communists in China. They'd been among the KMT's toughest soldiers even though they were as young as twelve. The brigade itself had been orphaned years ago, just another forgotten cockamamie Cold War relic.
I gave the man an informal salute that he returned immediately. “It's an honor to meet you, uncle,” I said. It was best to be deferential, even though Frankie hadn't told me his name. “Please have something to eat. Anything you want.”
“No, I should be going,” the man said before turning to Frankie. “It's a miracle to see you again, my friend. A real blessing from Mazu. Take care for now.” The two men clasped both each other's hands and smiled like boys. Frankie's friend turned away and disappeared into the crowd on Danan Road. I saw Frankie's smile fade. His face was neutral but his eyes were sad.
“Is everything okay, Frankie?” I asked.
“I'm fine.” I appreciated that he didn't try to fake a smile.
“Did that guy say something to upset you?”
“No. It's just upsetting to see him and remember those times. We were so innocent, you know? Sure, we had guns, but we were naïve. There aren't many of us left.” Frankie shook his head. “I didn't introduce you properly because he changed his name. He'd probably prefer you didn't know either of them.”
We were rudely interrupted by Dwayne's groans from the restroom.
“Did anything big happen while we were away, Frankie?”
“Naw, this place was dead while the contest was going on.” He turned on the faucet and ran his hands under the water. “Dwayne didn't come in last, did he?”
“He almost did, but I don't think anybody noticed. It was a two-man contest.”
Dwayne stepped out of the restroom, looking as fresh as a newly wilted flower.
“Well, that stinky tofu's not going to be a problem anymore,” he declared.
Chapter Two
Near closing time some
friends from other stalls walked by Unknown Pleasures to lightly sprinkle shit on Dwayne for performing so poorly in the eating contest.
“I was thinking about your face and I lost my appetite,” was his standard reply. Dwayne could have come up with something better under normal circumstances, but he wasn't so sharp after his system cleanse. He wasn't even up for horsing around during the lulls.
At around one in the morning I left the night market. I'd scrubbed down the side grill and mopped the tiles in the front. Dwayne would take care of the main grill and Frankie, who always left last, would finish everything else. I would be screwed without those guys because honestly they worked like they were family. No days off. I could tell when one of them was feeling sick only by their excessive tea drinking, and even then, neither would ever cop to it. They never seriously complained about anything.
Maybe they felt sorry for me.
I touched Little Fatty on the way out. I don't believe in luck, superstitions, or gods, but that little pot had saved my life. I know it's an inanimate object but I will feel a great deal of affection for it until I die.
I walked down the darkened streets that only a few hours ago were choked with people. Death. Why was I thinking about death again, much less my own death? I was alive, in love, and happy. Very happy.
I turned west on Jiantan Road, away from the night market. I continued along the boarded-up future site of the Taipei Performing Arts Center, which looked like a moon base in artist renderings. I was sure that it was going to have many important cultural events that I wouldn't have the time, money, or desire to attend.
I crossed Chengde Road and stopped at the all-night fruit stand, which had way better deals than the cheats at the night market. I bought a pineapple that had already been shorn of its headpiece and skinned. It's always good to have one in the fridge.
After I turned the corner, I saw a huge billboard and a wave of foreboding came over me. The giant ad was from a hospital. Like all hospital ads, none of the people in it seemed to require hospitalization. A three-generation family was sitting in their living room, smiling like dopes and pointing to a full moon that was perfectly centered in their apparently high-definition glass window.
the mid-autumn festival: a time to love,
declared the ad.
I trudged on about
four blocks to Qiangang Park, which was pretty big for a neighborhood park and included an outdoor pool near the obligatory temple to Mazu. My apartment was on the second floor of a generic concrete building that had sprouted up in the 1990s. From the bedroom I had a great view of a lighted small dirt patch in a neglected section of the park. It's a decent apartment with unwarped floors and gets quite a bit of light. Plumbing's in great shape, too. I couldn't understand why the preceding tenants had all broken their leases. Not until my first weekend.
Every Friday and Saturday nights, a pack of stray dogs entered the park and the alpha fought off challengers on that dirt patch. Dogs of all sizes, shapes, colors, and hair lengths let loose with howls of laughter and pain like partying teenagers in American films. It was loud enough to rattle my windows. Nancy refused to stay over on weekends. “Those are incarnations of evil spirits!” she declared.
At about three in the morning, the alpha would pull his head back and wail a saga. He had the general shape of a German shepherd wrapped in knots of long, dirty white hair. His head fringe hung at a rakish angle over his face, covering one of his eyes. By the end of the night, he was often splattered in blood. He would lick it off and smile at the moon. I named him Willie after Willie Nelson.
I watched Willie after his victories. At first I hated him for presiding over all that noise but I came to admire the beast as a decent fellow. The dog wouldn't kill his defeated rivals, as was his right to. Not only did he forgive them, he seemed to grant them high ranks in the pack as a consolation prize.
How could Willie be an evil spirit?
The Council of Agriculture, which was responsible for rounding up strays, showed up only during the big ferret-badger rabies scare. They were supposed to vaccinate the dogs, as well. But when the guys left their truck for a dinner break, Willie led his top dogs into their cab through an open window and pissed all over the interior. The COA workers called a tow truck and took a cab home. It was all caught on security cameras.
Not only is CCTV the nation's top crime-fighting tool, it doubles as source material for cable news programs and talk shows. One news station created an animated meme of giant dogs pissing on things, including the Taipei 101 skyscraper, the face of the head of the COA, and the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, turning it yellow.
So what if my bedroom was a box seat to dog mischief? It was still an improvement from my old home, the one in the benignly sleazy Wanhua District that I had grown up in. That was an illegal building that had burned down to the ground more than a month ago. Seems like a former life.
When my parents died, I had been saddled with a family debt related to my grandfather's gambling habits and a loan from a local crime boss to cover losses. The
jiaotou
, as these neighborhood bosses are known, was really paying himself back with his own money, since he ran the gambing parlor as well.
Gambling has been a fixture in Taiwan since Chinese people arrived en masse in the 17th century and it's been a hard habit to break. Organized criminal activity to support gambling and other vices took root under the Japanese colonizers; after they left at the end of World War II, Taiwanese took over.
Jiaotou
s are local-level guys. Maybe they have a dozen guys and five blocks under their control. They were Taiwanese Taiwanese.
Benshengren
, descended from Chinese who fled China when the Ming Dynasty collapsed in 1644. They also have aboriginal blood, since nearly all the Chinese who came over were men.
Benshengren
also speak Taiwanese and only resort to Mandarin Chinese under duress.
The big gangs in Taiwan, the ones that operate on a national level, are mostly staffed with so-called mainlanders, descendants of Chinese who came over in waves after World War II and the Chinese civil war.
One may think that after seventy years there wouldn't be much difference between the two largest populations of Taiwan, or that the tension would not be noticeable on a day-to-day basis. But memories are long and the past remains present. We worship our ancestors, after all.
Some
benshengren
are still bitter about their perceived mistreatment at the hands of the mainlanders during the forty-year martial-law era. Mainlanders say
benshengren
are looking for ways to segregate themselves, which is interesting because that's what
benshengren
say about the Hakka, an ethnic minority originally from China. And don't get anyone started on whose fault it is that the indigenous people of Taiwan continue to be marginalized.
There are many issues we all have with each other and past grievances are stoked every election as the country tears itself apart.
An old friend told me once that criminal organizations offer more stability than the government, and without all the fake promises and red tape. Whenever there are natural disasters in Taiwanâearthquakes, hurricanes, or mudslidesâwho are the first people on the scene with food, water, blankets, and medical supplies? The gangs.
The rare times that there are stabbings, it's gangsters killing each other. The police and the community at large don't have problems with that. Gangsters by code use knives and swords. They disdain guns, which any dissolute amateur can use. No honor in using them.
Taiwan's gangsters operate outside the law, but that doesn't mean they don't have a sense of integrity for the profession.
In fact, after the
fire that destroyed my old house, the
jiaotou
who had inherited the lender end of my family debt slashed what I owed and later wiped it away altogether. We had always gotten along on a superficial level, but I was taken aback by his newfound charity. The guy even sent me a little housewarming gift basket when I moved out of Nancy's place and into the Qiangang Park apartment. Nancy had said I didn't have to move out, but I felt weird living there, maybe because I'm old-fashioned in the sense that I believe a man should really have his own place. I was also against staying there because a rich married dude had given Nancy the apartment while she was his mistress. He was in jail now for bribing officials, otherwise I would totally be kicking his ass on principle alone.
I entered my apartment
and was greeted immediately by thumping from the ceiling. The people above had installed a Japanese-style floor of raised wood planks over a hollow center. The trapped air pocket acted like a layer of insulation that kept the floor cool during hot summer days and warm in the winter. The downside, borne entirely by me, was that every step my neighbors took sounded like a beat of a tom-tom drum. Apparently they were having a stomping party right now, at one-thirty in the morning. I fought back the only way I knew how. I lifted my stereo speakers to the top of my dresser, pointed them upwards and cued up a live recording of Joy Division covering “Sister Ray.” It was the loudest music file I had.
I unbuttoned and peeled off my shirt, which was sweaty in the back and greasy in front. I was normally against wearing a collared shirt, but Nancy said I should look nice in case I was on television during the eating contest. I showered, snaked into a V-neck and light cotton slacks, and brushed my teeth as “Sister Ray” played on. The track was only about seven and a half minutes long, but I had it on repeat. I hoped my neighbors' hollow floor acted like a subwoofer and throbbed like a bass cabinet under their feet.
I was chuckling as I imagined their furniture jerking around from the sound waves when an insistent knock came at the front door. Oh, shit. I'd only ever blasted music at my neighbors, not confronted them in person. That would be rude. Taiwan is mostly a passive, non-confrontational place.
More knocks.
I had no idea what these neighbors looked like. Maybe it was a really big guy. Maybe he wanted to punch my lights out. I should take a weapon to the door, but something not too threatening, in case it was actually, say, an older woman. I grabbed my toothbrush in my right hand. It didn't look very threatening, but I could poke an eye out with it, if I had to.
My apartment door had a peephole that had been painted over on both ends.
“Who is it?” I called out.
“Jing-nan?” I didn't recognize the man's voice. He didn't sound big or angry.
“Yeah,” I said. “Are you complaining about the noise?”
“What? No. Just open the door.” I could hear his fingernails tapping impatiently.
“It's really late,” I said. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Fuck this,” said the man. I heard something rattle in the lock. I dropped my toothbrush and grabbed at the chain lock. Before I could slide it into place the door swung open.
I backed up as two men intruded. The guy in front was of a medium build, about the same size as me. He wasn't happy. The man behind him stood at about six feet three, his muscles spread out over his large frame like the multiple trunks of a banyan tree. The big man had a dull look in his eyes that said, “I would lose zero sleep over your death from prolonged violence.”
“Jing-nan,” said the man who was my size. “Your uncle sent us, so there's nothing to worry about. Call me Whistle. This is Gao.” His teeth were stained red from chewing betel nut. A ring of keys and lock picks danced around his hairy knuckles.
Contrary to what he said, I became even more apprehensive at the mention of my uncle. “My no-good brother,” as my father used to refer to him. I hadn't seen him in maybe fifteen years. He had the Chen family habit of accumulating debts. He partially paid them off and then, after a brief cancer scare, he skipped town. There were rumors that he had established himself on a remote island in the Philippines, doing who knew what.
Whistle lifted an open hand to me. “Jing-nan, we have to go,” he said.
“Gonna use the can,” grunted Gao as he pushed his way past me.
“Where are we going?” I asked Whistle.
“We're taking you to your uncle,” he said, surprised that I wasn't able to figure that out. “He has to talk to you.”
“Where is he?”
“Taichung City!” said Whistle, surprised that I hadn't known that, either. Taichung, true to its name, “central Taiwan,” is located above the center of the island, to the southwest from Taipei. It's about a two-hour drive.
“Couldn't I talk to him on the phone?” I said, not meaning to whine.
“Jing-nan!” Whistle chided. “He's all the family you've got! You know what time of year it is! You have to see him in person!”
I licked my lips. “Is he in trouble?”
“Of course not. Now, let's go. Put on some clothes and shoes, not sandals.” I heard a loud hocking sound echo in the bathroom, followed by the toilet flushing.
I can't pretend to
understand how families work in other cultures. I know American kids can't wait to move out of the house and that they see their grandparents only a handful of times a year. In Taiwan we live in the family house basically until we're married. You see your grandparents every day because grandma cooks for the entire family and grandpa's parked on his favorite chair by the window, reading newspapers and eating roasted melon seeds, piling the shells on an already-read section. Your aunts and uncles and their kids are probably living in another room or in an adjacent apartment where the adjoining door is never locked.
I remember in one of the
Godfather
films someone says to keep your friends close but your enemies closer. In Taiwan we keep our family even closer than our enemies.